Morris tribune. [volume] (Morris, Minn.) 1880-2000, 1887-07-27
COLORS AND EMOTIONS.
THE SENSE OF COLOR AS OLD AS
THE GNAWING OF HUNGER.

Red Associated With Violent Mental I'm.
pressions-Blue the Color Mysterious
and Holy-"Red Words" of Swinburne.
Yellow and Green.
The theories of Gladstone and Magnus
that the men of the Homeric era were
color blind, because Of the absence from
the Homeric poems of certain words ex-
pressive of certain colors, have been dis
proved by more thorough modern re-
search. The primitive mans sense of
Color, or the sensitiveness of his retina to
ether vibrations, may not have been as
fine as that of the Roman mosaic worker
who could select his material of 10000
different tints, nor as that of the Gobelins
weaver, who can recognize $4,000 differ
ent shades of wool. But the evidence
goes to show that the sense of color is old
as the gnawing of hunger or the pangs of
fear-old as the experience that taught
living creatures to discern food and to flee
from danger. There is, however, reason
to suppose, from certain developmental
phenomena observed in the eyes of chill
dren and newly born animals, that the
present condition of the color sense has
been gradually reached-not 80 much in
any particular species as in all species
possessing it-just as vision itself must
have been gradually acquired. Also
snowy colors must have been perceived
before tints could be discerned; and even
now we know, through the spectroscope,
that the human eye is not yet developed
to the fullest possible perceptions Of color.
Now the first colors recognized by the
first eyes must have presumably been just
those we call primary-yellow, red, green,
blue. Yellow, the color of gold, Is also
the color of our sun; the brightest day
light has more or less faint tinge even at
noon, according to the state of the atmos-
phere; and this tint deepens at sunrise
and sunset. Red is the color Of blood-a
color allied necessarily from time imme-
mortal with violent mental impressions,
whether of war, of love, or the chase, or
religious sacrifice. Green itself is the
color of the world. Blue-the blue of the
far away sky-has necessarily always been
for man the color most mysterious and
holy-always associated with those high
phenomena of heaven which first inspired
wonder and fear of the unknown. These
colors were probably first known to intel
ligent life; and their impressions are to-
day the strongest. So violent, indeed,
have they become to our refined sense,
that in apparel or decoration three of
them, at least, are condemned when Of
fered pure. Even the armies of the world
are abandoning red uniforms; no refined
people wear flaming crimsons or scarlets
or yellows; nobody would paint house
or decorate. O wall with a solid sheet of
strong primary color. Blue is still the
least violent, the most agreeable to the
artistic sense; and in subdued form it
hold, a place, in costume and in art, re-
fused to less spiritual colors.
THE STRONGER EMOTIONS.
1t must consequently be expected there
should exist some correlation between the
primary colors and the stronger emotional
states of man. And such, indeed, proves
to be the case. Emotionally the colors
come in the order of red, yellow, green
and blue. Red still appeals to the idea of
passion-for which very reason its artistic
use is being more and more restrained.
Very curious are the researches made by
Grant Allen showing this fact of the
sensual use of red. In Swinburne's "Po-
ems and Ballads" the same suppressed
work republished in this country under its
first title, Claus Veneris'9, the red cpl
thets appear 159 times, while gold, green
and blue words occur respectively 143,
IS and Is times. In Tennyson's beautiful
poem, "The Princess" the red words oc-
cur only 20 times, the gold %, the green
5, the blue once. With all his exquisite
sense of color, Tennyson is sparing of adj
jectives-there is no false skin to his
work; it Is solid muscle and bone.
Next to red, the most emotional color
S yellow-the color of life, and of what
men seem to prize next to life, gold. We
fancy we can live without green some
lines; it comes third; but it is the hue
with all the 1abors Of man on
The earth since he began to labor. It is
he color of industry. Blue has always
,een, since man commenced to think, and
always will be, until he shall have ceased
% think, associated with his spiritual
ense, his idea of many gods or of
)ne, his hopes of a second life,
lis faith, his good purposes, his per-
;eption of duty. Still, all who pray
urn up their faces toward the eternal
lzure. And with the modern expansion
If the idea of God, as with the modern
expansion of the idea of the universe, the
Tiolet gulf of space ever seems more mys-
ical, its pure color more and more divine,
Ind appeals to us as the color of the I'm
the color of the Holy of Holes.
New Orleans Times-Democrat